


Colorblind

by july_v



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:58:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/july_v/pseuds/july_v
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon is five when he meets Patrick. It's also the time he begins to understand colors as more than an abstract concept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colorblind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadowandrhyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowandrhyme/gifts), [beyondtheclouds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondtheclouds/gifts).



> Okay, I'm going to start with a few warnings:  
> 1\. Jon was born blind in this story and there is no magical cure to help him see.  
> 2\. There is a 200% chance this is terribly inaccurate, because I can see and I can't even begin to imagine being blind.
> 
> And then I dedicate this work to [Kat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowandrhyme/profile) and [beyondtheclouds](http://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondtheclouds/profile), who both betaed and cheer-leaded for this story. Thank you so much! <3

Jon is five when he meets Patrick. It's also the time he begins to understand colors as more than an abstract concept. His parents had tried to explain it to him and he constantly heard about colors everywhere. He knows their names, but he can't imagine them. The only color he knows by the time he meets Pat is black. At least he thinks it is black that he sees.

He knows that his own hair and his eyes are brown. The color of his favorite shirt, the soft one he wears most often, is red. Hi father's car is silver and his mother's favorite scarf is purple. The sun is yellow, the sky is blue. Traffic lights are red and yellow and green. Yet he doesn't know what color means to people who can see.

It's a sunny day in May and Jon's having a picnic in the park with his mother. There's a light breeze in the air and Jon is sure he has at least two mosquito bites on his arms. It's almost too warm for Jon's liking, but it's nice to be outside anyway.

"Excuse me?" a boy asks, just as Jon has a hand buried in a bag of animal crackers. "Can I have one? I missed lunch." There's a chuckle and Jon turns his head in the direction the voice is coming from. It's not the voice of someone he recognizes.

"Jonny, would you give him a cracker?" his mother prompts.

So Jon holds out the bag and completely forgets that he was just getting a cracker for himself.

"Hi Jonny, I'm Patrick. But you can call me Pat!" The boy sounds cheerful and a moment later he's sitting down on the blanket next to Jon. Pat reaches into the bag with the crackers. "Hah! Elephant!"

Jon isn't sure why his mother buys the animal crackers for him. Sometimes he'll try to tell what animal they are by their shape, but it's difficult. It's really frustrating when he thinks he's about to eat a penguin cracker, only to have his mother tell him it's actually a giraffe. They taste the same as the other crackers, anyway.

They chat a little for a while. Pat is not at all impressed by the fact that Jon was born blind. He lets Jon touch his face, feel out the soft curves of his jaw, and his curly hair. It's nice, mostly because Pat doesn't ask questions like all the other kids. After a while someone –presumably his father – calls for Patrick and he has to go, but he promises to come over again if he sees Jon around.

\---

Pat handles Jon's blindness better than anyone else Jon ever met before. That is until he finds out about the thing with the colors. Jon just eats his Skittles, whatever color, and tells them apart by their taste. The color doesn't matter to Jon, because it's not something he understands. It's like he doesn't care whether his crackers or chicken nuggets are animal-shaped.

"My favorite is the red kind," Pat says, reaching into the bowl of Skittles that Jon's father had brought them. They're in Jon's room, playing.

Jon doesn't know which ones are 'the red kind'. "Give me one." He holds out a hand, palm up, and eats the candy Pat gives him. It tastes like strawberry. "So your favorite is the strawberry kind?"

Pat falls silent and all Jon hears is the sound of his chewing. "That's no good," Pat says after a moment. "We'll have to change that."

At first Jon doesn't understand what Pat is talking about. The other has a habit of thinking out loud and Jon has trouble following what he's saying most of the time.

"You can't not know colors."

That almost startles a laugh out of Jon. He knows that he won't ever be able to see. There are operations and devices, but they don't usually work on people who were born blind. It's something Pat wouldn't know, so it'd be unfair of Jon to laugh. Instead he asks, "How?"

"I don't know," Pat says in a duh-tone. "But my mum says I'm super smart. I'll think of something."

\---

And Pat does come up with something, just like he promised. He invites himself over – or gets his mother to do it for him – two days later.

"I'll show you colors now," he announces upon barging into Jon's room after lunch.

Jon replies with a huff, because _showing_ won't help.

"I know Jonny!" Pat says, entirely unimpressed. "You can touch them. When I say show you I mean let you touch them. Okay?"

"Touch them?" Jon can't imagine how that's supposed to work. He is curious though, because Pat is, as he said, very clever.

"What color do you want to start with?" Pat asks him.

"Red." It's not something Jon has to think about for very long. He runs a hand over his stomach and the soft fabric of his favorite shirt.

"That's red," Pat says and takes his hand. He told Jon, on their third meeting or so, that he is sure Jon will walk faster if Pat guides him. Jon isn't sure if he trusts Pat enough yet, but Pat is probably his best friend. At least he never purposely made Jon run into things.

Pat guides him downstairs and out into the garden, through the glass doors. The change in temperature immediately makes Jonny aware of where he is. Jon is barefoot, because even with the air conditioning running in the house it's too warm for socks. The wooden planks of the deck are warm and familiar beneath his feet.

Normally Jon orients by counting his steps, but his steps are always longer when Pat pulls him along, making him move faster than he normally would. It's alright with Jon, because he has other ways, too. At home he can tell where he is by the flooring.

"Okay, red." Pat stops somewhere on the grass, Jon right by his side. There's a hand on Jon's chin, tilting his head up and then a hand on his arm pulling him half a step to the left.

"So?" Jon asks after nothing happens for a while. It's a nice day outside, Jon can tell from the sun that's shining on his face and warms his skin.

"That's red," Pat explains and puts both of his hands on Jon's cheeks. "All warm."

"Oh…" Jon has to smile when he understands. "So red is soft and warm?" he asks.

"Warm," Pat allows until Jon takes one of his hands and puts it on the shirt he's wearing. "Okay, red is soft and warm," Pat agrees. Jon is sure he's smiling, so he reaches up and touches Pat's face, feels the curve of his lip and the dimples in his cheeks.

"Which color is next?" Jon is really curious now. Despite the curiosity he doesn't move, just turns his face back into the sun and soaks up all the red.

"Green," Pat decides. "It's right here. Just sit down and put your hands on the ground. That's green."

Jon does as he is told, slides his fingers through the grass that his father had mowed the day before. It's smooth and cool, a little wet from when his mother had watered it not long ago.

"That's dark green," Pat corrects himself. He's sitting with his back against Jon's. "It feels more like dark green, I think," he explains. They're both quiet for a while until Pat interrupts the quiet by bursting out: "I think my butt is getting wet!" and jumps to his feet. "Eww!"

It makes Jon laugh so hard that he topples over onto his side and curls into himself a little. When he finally calms down his cheek is pressed into the grass. "I like green and red," he tells Pat.

"Get up!" Pat instructs. "There's more! I want to show you grey now. I just found grey!"

Grey turns out to be a stone. One of the large ones that line the path from the street up to the front door of the house. Its surface is rough and cold and Jon feels the little ridges that it digs into his palms as he presses them against it.

"Grey isn't as nice." Jon still likes it, keeps running his fingertips over the stone. It starts to dawn on him that he'll love all the colors, because they're new and because Pat found a way to let Jon touch them.

"Yeah," Pat agrees. "Grey's no one's favorite color," he announces with his usual certainty. "But it's okay." He takes one of Jon's hands and rubs his thumbs over Jon's palms and the little dents in them. "I can also show you blue and brown." He tangles their hands together and leads Jon into the back of the garden again. "Light brown."

At first Jon's not sure what he's touching. It's rough and neither warm nor cold. "What's that?" He moves his hands and what he feels, in shapes, is a tree. Jon's fingers trace the thick tree trunk and the branches coming out of it. It's tree bark.

"That's light brown," Pat laughs.

"It's a tree, dummy," Jon says without heat.

"No, it's light brown, _dummy_ ," Pat echoes mockingly. "And I'll show you dark brown next." With that he reaches for Jon's hand again. "You have to kneel down."

Dark brown is a mix of wet and dry, little chunks of earth that crumble when Jon squeezes them too tightly and chips of wood. Jon keeps a handful in his right palm and focuses on the feeling of it. It comes as a surprise when Pat takes his left hand and puts it against the three bark again.

"Feel the difference?" Pat asks.

"Uhu." The difference is pretty obvious, but the direct comparison makes it even more striking. "Dark brown is more… wet," Jon says after a while. "Dark green too." He remember that because he's sitting on the grass and it's a little wet against his bare legs.

"Things look darker when they get wet," Pat tells him.

"Oh." Jon nods. He wouldn't know these things. He knows that things get heavier when they get wet, but that's all. "Is dark red also wet?"

"Hm…" Pat makes. When he's around Jon he makes a lot of these sounds. The first time Jon had asked about it Pat had explained that it's because Jon can't see his face and doesn't know what he's doing. _Hmm_ is his thinking noise. At other times Pat will down-right narrate his actions. 'You can't see, Jonny, but I'm pointing at you while I laugh!'.

"I don't know," Pat finally concludes. "I'll tell you when I think of something."

That's fine with Jon, so he nods. He's learned a few colors already, he can wait. He's reluctant to let go of his handful of dark brown, too.

"You want to sit here for a bit?" Pat asks him.

Jon knows he doesn't like being idle, but the offer is too tempting for Jon to say no.

"Okay, let me know if you want to touch the other colors again," Pat says, even before Jon can say anything.

"Thank you." Jon is feeling terribly happy, grateful to Pat for showing him the colors.

"Pft," Pat makes dismissively. "Don't be silly. I'll be back, yes?"

"I'll wait." Jon just sits there and compares his browns in his hands and his dark green against his legs. With Pat's help a tree is suddenly more than just shape and texture for Jon.

Pat returns quickly and sits down close to Jon again. "Your mom let me borrow a book," he explains his absence.

"Can you read?" Jon asks curiously. He knows his mother loves to read and that she owns a large collection of books. He's touched the backs of them lined up on long shelves. Jon also knows he'll be able to learn to read, but not the same way as other kids who can see.

"Some," Pat answers and Jon hears the rustling of paper when he turns a page. "Well…" Pat stretches the vowel. "Some words," he admits. "But this book has pictures of sea animals."

Jon nods slowly. For once he can't even feel sad about not being able to see the pictures, not when Pat has just taught him colors.

\---

In the following days and weeks Pat keeps showing Jon new colors or variations of the ones he already knows. Jon gets to know pink, which is a little warm and very soft, some fabric Pat brings and that he claims belongs to his sisters. There is blue and blue is water and wind. On the playground Pat shows him yellow, which is sand. But red remains Jon's favorite color.

Jon tells his parents about the new colors every day when they have dinner or he might just talk about colors he's more familiar with, if he didn't learn any new ones.

Now, when Jon touches something, he assigns it a color. Sometimes it's hard, because he'll feel something and he doesn't know exactly which color it is. Pat assures him it's okay, that Jon just doesn't know all the colors yet, but Pat promises to teach him.

Sometimes his parents will teach him a new color, but mostly it's Pat who takes his hand and gives him a new color to add to the ones he knows. So while he now begins to associate everyone he meets with a color, Pat is every single color he knows all crammed together. That's what Jon imagines a rainbow is like, all of the colors put together.

While colors are mostly feelings, textures and temperatures for Jon, just hearing Pat talk will remind him of a color, or usually of all of them.

Silver and gold, for all Jon hears about them, turn out to be very difficult colors. Still, Pat swears he will keep thinking about them and promises he is going to teach them to Jon one day.

\---

"I know what silver is!" Pat announces, throwing Jon's door open so it bangs loudly against the wall. "Sorry!" Pat calls out, most likely to Jon's parents downstairs.

They're both six now, going to school. Jon's a little sad that they can't go to the same school and that they don't see each other as often anymore.

Pat also has hockey practice twice a week and he took Jon with him once. It was loud at the rink, kids chattering and the sound of skates on the ice and everything had seemed very confusing to Jon. There were too many people and Jon couldn't follow Pat, because he couldn't pick out any sounds that were uniquely Pat's. Apart from a few shouted words he had no idea where Pat was most of the time.

Afterwards Pat had led Jon out onto the ice once almost everyone else had already gone. He held both of Jon's hands in his, because Jon had a difficult time walking on the ice.

"Ice is very, very light blue," Pat said. "It's almost white. Do you want to touch it?" Pat had developed a habit of telling Jon about the colors of everything. Sometimes they would be the physical colors an item had and sometimes they would be _Jon's colors_ , as he called them.

"I know what ice feels like," Jon said with a small smile. He was freezing from sitting in the cold air of the rink for so long. He felt chilly all over, except for his hands that were warm inside of Pat's. Jon thought that Pat's palms had to look a little red, warm and soft as they were.

"You wanna touch the puck?," Pat offered. "Or maybe a stick?Or the helmet?" Jon heard the smile in his voice, the excitement that was always there when he talked about skating and hockey. "Hold still," he told Jon and let go of his hands.

Jon immediately felt like he was going to fall over without Pat holding him, so he kept as still as he could.

"Helmet coming up," Pat warned him and a moment later he'd put his helmet on Jon's head. "It suits you," he'd said and then Pat had put Jon's hands on the helmet.

Jon's fingers found metal and plastic. Out of the two the metal was what surprised Jon. It was cold and reminded him of the fence in his uncle's garden. In his mind the metal was grey, cold although smoother than the stone Pat had used to teach him the color.

"The cage's there so you don't get a puck in the face," Pat explained. "Now hold out your hands. I'll give you my gloves and stick."

Jon did as he was told and Pat slid the big gloves onto Jon's hands for him. They were warm on the inside from when Patrick wore them, a stark contrast to the cold air around them. The fear of falling over was still there, but Pat was distracting him from thinking about it too much.

Before Pat could hand him the stick though, Donna spoke up and interrupted them. "Boys, you have to get off the ice," she told them, eliciting a huff from Pat. "They have a figure skating class now."

Jon never went back to the rink after that, but Pat still tells him about practice and games. Silver, the day Jon finally learns what it feels like, is also hockey-related.

"Open your hand," Pat says and he sounds so excited. Jon hasn't seen him over the weekend, because Pat was busy with hockey. There had been some hockey tournament that had kept all of Pat's attention. He'd even invited Jon to come to the games, but Jon had turned the offer down.

He didn't like the rink. He didn't like the noises that were hard to place and the game that he couldn't follow because he couldn't see. Donna had told him what was happening on the ice when he'd come to Pat's training, but it hadn't helped. Hockey wasn't for blind people. Or at least it wasn't for Jon.

It was stupid that Pat got so excited about something Jon couldn't be part of and Jon didn't like it.

Turning away from the paper in front of him Jon holds out his hand. He's trying to work on his reading. Telling the different patterns of tiny dots apart by touching them is giving him trouble, but he's determined to learn.

As soon as Jon opens his palm, something lands on it. It's roughly the size of his palm and heavy for something so small. The item is solid, flat and round. The surface is smooth and cool when Jon runs his fingers over it.

"Silver is…" he begins. It reminds him of very light blue and ice, but it's less cold. The surfaces changes into something uneven when Jon turns the item over in his hand. It's a coin or something similar, and there is a relief on the backside of it, even if Jon can't tell what it shows.

"It's almost light blue," he concludes, clutching the coin in his hand.

"Exactly," Pat agrees.

"What is it?" Jon opens his hand again to indicate the coin.

"My medal. We got silver, second place."

"Only second?" Jon asks. "You said you're so good at hockey." Jon all but forgets that he's supposed to be learning a color. Maybe hockey isn't as great as Pat always says it is. If Pat isn't as great as he always says he is, maybe he'll quite hockey.

"I am!" Pat insists. "But there's not just me on the team. There're others who aren’t so good."

"Then be better," Jon huffs. He still curls his fingers around the medal again, because Pat is his friend and he's proud of him. The medal feels nice in his hand. "But silver is still good. Second place is good, Pat."

"Yeah, it is," Pat agrees. "But I'll be better. I have to be and then I'll go to the NHL and win the Stanley Cup. It's silver too. And when I win it and get to have it for a day I'll let you touch it. It's only 12 years till I can play in the NHL and then a year after I start I'll have the cup."

"But first you win another medal, yes? A gold one? To show me what gold is like?"

"I will. But I'm sure it feels the same as silver. But I'll win one for you, I promise." Pat puts a hand over Jon's around the medal and squeezes a little. "You can keep this one, if you want."

\---

In the end it is Donna who teaches him what gold feels like, even if Pat still plays an integral role in all of it. For a while Pat had tried to come up with ideas, and he'd taken Jon's hand a few times but then ultimately changed his mind declaring that _this isn't right_.

They're in Pat's room, reading to each other. It was Jon's idea to practice reading together so they could do something useful with their time.

Donna comes in with cookies and tea on a tray. She always brings them an afternoon snack when Jon is over.

"What are you two up to?" she asks and, by the sound of the bedsprings creaking, she's taken a seat next to Pat on the bed.

"Reading," Pat tells her. "We're practicing," and then he adds in a stage-whisper: "Jonny doesn't spent enough time at school, so we play school at home."

Jon huffs a little. It's typical Pat. "But I want to learn to read."

"It's alright, Jon," Donna says. "Pat's a little lazy, but he's still my golden boy."

Jon perks up when he hears the word. "Gold?" he asks. "I don't know gold." He is sure he sounds a little disappointed.

"Yet!" Pat chimes in immediately, like he picked up on Jon's disappointment. "I don't know how to show him how gold feels," he explains, presumably to his mother, sounding frustrated.

"What a coincidence," Donna says, followed by a soft hum. Jon never touched her face when she was grinning, but he touched Pat's when he did all sorts of expressions and he's sure that Donna's face right now feels very much like Pat's.

"Can you show me?" he asks, hopeful and excited.

Gold is the last major color he is missing, according to Pat. Pat said black, blue, red, green, yellow and white are most important. Most of the other colors are just variations of these, warmer or colder, maybe wetter or of a different texture. And then there are gold and silver. Jon knows silver, keeps the medal Pat gave him on his bedside table, but gold is still missing in his collection.

"Of course. Do you want to come over here?"

Jon walks over slowly. It's five steps from Pat's desk to his bed and Pat's gotten really good at not leaving things lying on the floor when Jon is over. When he does carelessly drop his things all over the room he at least warns Jon.

"Wait a moment," Donna tells him when he stops after four steps.

There is a lot of shuffling, and some huffing from Pat. The sound is very close and Jon figures that Pat is standing in front of him now.

"I'm going to take your hands," Donna says before she grabs Jon's wrists. Pat does the same, when he's with Jon. He warns him before touching Jon or before he does other things that could startle him. Jon is very thankful for that. His fingers touch something soft. It takes a moment for him to realize what he is touching. It's hair, short and curly and very, very soft.

"Okay?" Donna asks him and releases his wrists.

Jon nods slowly. His fingers slide over ears and a jaw until they find Pat's lips. He's smiling widely.

It's a spontaneous decision when Jon pulls Pat into a tight hug and just holds onto him, their cheeks pressed together. Pat wraps his arms around Jon and pats his back, almost as if he's consoling him, but he doesn't pull away.

From that day onwards Pat is mostly gold, mixed up with all the other colors Jon knows and the ones he can barely even imagine.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything related to world-creation of blind people is completely made up by me and I don't claim ANY of it to be accurate. I didn't do any googling on the topic, because I'm pretty sure it would have debunked the idea I had in my head. This is really just about the (I think) adorable idea of Kaner teaching Jon colours and giving him something really special.
> 
> Should I have warned for Jon not liking hockey?
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading this, because I really enjoyed writing it.


End file.
